


The Most Forgiving Light

by lesyeuxverts



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 10:16:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesyeuxverts/pseuds/lesyeuxverts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rain came down in sheets. London's streets were grey and washed out – the world looked empty, as if waiting for its end</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Forgiving Light

The rain came down in sheets. London's streets were grey and washed out – the world looked empty, as if waiting for its end. Severus's head thunked against the plate glass of the window.  
  
He rested there a moment, the glass cool and hard against his forehead. The room behind him was as empty and threadbare as the streets – he knew that without turning. One candle flickered, casting golden light into the grey window, the only source of light in the shadows. The boarding house was a hovel, a resting place only.  
  
His breath misted the glass, but Severus squinted through the mist. There was a figure, barely visible at the end of the street, as small and black as a fly, hurrying through the rain. Severus rubbed away the fog on the window and watched.  
  
He knew it was Potter before the man was close enough to knock on the front door of the boarding house. There was the insouciant lack of an umbrella, the dark hair plastered to his head, the lanky ground-eating stride – it was Potter, and Severus clenched his hands into fists.   
  
_Not again._  
  
Potter lunged up the steps and, through the thin walls, Severus heard him pounding on the door. Taking a deep breath, Severus turned away from the window just as Potter burst through the door and into his room.  
  
"I have no intention of reconsidering–"  
  
Potter, his hands wet from the rain, grasped Severus's forearm. The water went straight through his thin shirt, and Severus shook Potter's hands away. "If you think you can manhandle–"  
  
"Please." Potter pushed the wet hair away from his face and looked up at Severus. "Just listen to me."  
  
"I've heard your arguments."  
  
"I'm not here to argue with you." Potter slipped his wand out of his pocket and flicked the water off the tip of it – he conjured table and chairs, tea and biscuits, with a wave of his wand, and then he offered it to Severus. "Take it," he said. "I'll give it up."  
  
"For me."  
  
He nodded – impossibly earnest, impossibly young – and Severus scoffed at him. "You'll give up your fame, your fortune and your birthright for _me_ , Mr. Potter? You'll give up every friend and every familiar face, just to follow me into exile?"  
  
Potter nodded and waved his wand in Severus's face. "I told you – take it. I told the Wizengamot – either both of us were innocent, or neither of us. I'll–"  
  
Severus put his hands on Harry's shoulders and forced him down into one of the conjured chairs. "You'll throw everything away," he said, "for a love that will last … a few months, perhaps? A year?  
  
"When it's over – when you leave me – you'll have nowhere to go. You can't see me, Harry. You don't know what it is you're getting."  
  
Harry kicked the legs of the chair, his feet flying close to Severus's shins on the rebound. "I know all that. You said that before. You _said_ no more arguments … you…"  
  
He took Severus's hand, tracing the bones in his forearm. "I know you don't want me to see you," he said. "We both have scars … but you can hardly see them, if it's just candlelight and shadows."  
  
He surged up out of his chair and kissed Severus, backing him up against the window and pinning him there with both hands.  
  
The glass was cold against his back, and Harry's lips were wet with rain – and Harry, pressed against him, was soaking his clothing through to his skin – but with Harry in his arms, none of it seemed to matter. The afternoon was lengthening into night, and the storm was washing out the rest of the daylight, but the candle flickered and cast light on them both.


End file.
